No to mention, videos give you more places to promote your content. YouTube is the second largest search engine, right behind Google.

Getting started with making videos can feel like entering a whole new content marketing universe. A lot of people don’t want to be on camera. Or they don’t know what talk about in their video content.

But, it doesn’t have to be hard to create high-quality video content.

In this edition of Behind the Scenes, we’ll walk through the simple process we use to script our videos.

We use this video script process for both our training and our content marketing videos. You can use our scripting process to help you create video content for your business. You don’t even have to get on camera!

Let’s talk about how we do this, and which tools you need to get the job done.

Building a video script

1. Start with your project map

Before I start blocking out a video script, I review each topic in our project management system. Asana stores all our background research. Building our video projects in Asana helps my team stay on track and hit our production deadlines.

2. Build a video script outline in PowerPoint

After I’ve gone over the background on my topic, I jump over to Powerpoint to outline my script.

You can use lots of different tools to outline a script, Word, Google Docs, notepad, or whatever you prefer.

Using PowerPoint allows me to do my scripts and prepare my visual aides all in one place.

3. Create visual aids

Creating templates is a great way to shave time off your preparation process.

After I review my outline, I create a slide for each talking point.

The PowerPoint slides help the script process in a number of ways. The slides break up the content and help people focus on the main messages in the video. Slides also give viewers something else to look at besides my face. And our slides frame our screenshots and other visual aids.

If you’re not interested in being on camera or don’t have the budget for fancy graphics, slides are a simple way to create engaging visual aides.

4. Add detail to your video script

Once your outline is done, you can craft your script right in the slides.

Most of our videos are based on questions from one of our course students. I use these questions as the starting point for my script.

Starting with a question helps me turn each script into a three-part story. We begin with the problem. Then we evaluate the challenge. And we close with the resolution.

I add a topic introduction to the beginning of each of our scripts. And at the end of the story, we create a call to action.

Nothing fancy, just a simple story-based process. Storytelling is one the most important parts of teaching. People are psychologically programmed to remember stories. If you can tell a good story, you can create a good video.

Although I put script notes in some of my slides, most of the on-camera voice over is ad-libbed. The impromptu dialogue cuts down on the prep time and, hopefully, makes the videos a little more interesting.

Video Tools

Here are a few Camtasia tips that will help you make sure your videos turn out well.

Record in a higher resolution than 1080p. If you record in a higher resolution, when you need to crop your video, you can still retain 1080p quality.

Use a decibel check to make sure your microphone volume is set correctly. We had some problems with our sound quality when we first started recording, because I was sitting too close to the mic. Simple problems that affect sound quality can add a lot of time to video editing. Test your sound before you start recording.

Set your screen recording size for your slides. On my giant Imac with a retina screen, Powerpoint presenter mode is 2972 X 1668. You can set your screen recorder to match the size of your PPT presenter mode.

How long does this process take?

Our videos take about one hour to outline and script, and another hour to record. So, my total time investment per video is about two hours.

We also have other team members that work on each video. Depending on the depth of the video topic, editing and blogging can take another six to twelve hours.

That’s the whole video script process!

If you’re used to working with words or numbers all day, then jumping into video content can feel intimidating. It took me three to four years longer than it should have to start recording videos for my courses.

But creating video content doesn’t have to be difficult. I started as a one man show. To date, that one man show has taught over 10,000 students data-driven marketing skills using online video courses.

All you need to start making video content is a screen recorder, a few visual aids, a good microphone and a problem you can solve.

Leave a comment

Do you use video in your content marketing? Or will you use the process in this post to help you get started? Leave a comment below.

If you do start to create video content, send us a link to your video. We’ll share your video on Twitter, or link to it one of 90 day challenge posts.

In next week’s edition of Behind the Scenes, we’ll show you the process and tools we use to shoot the “Jeff on camera” part of our videos.